The Killer Head Cold
by Maria Rene
Summary: Claudia gets a head cold, Artie gets the woman of his dreams. Written while I was sick beyond all reason, so any moments of lucidity were entirely unintentional.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimers, notes, and junk: Not mine. Not making money off it. Actually the inspiration for this story cost me a small fortune, so if the owners of Warehouse 13 like it, feel free to pick up the tab for the co-pays. Spoilers for the first half of season two, or so. If you don't know about Artie's appendix, I'm gonna ruin that one for you, totally. To my readers, I sincerely apologize for the existence of this story. I just yesterday got pronounced as recovered from strep and pneumonia both, and I honestly don't even know what was in those little vials the nurses kept bringing me, but I had some really vivid chats with my muse for the past week and a half. This story came from those chats... I think, anyway. I'm not entirely sure on that one. I was going to send this to beta first, but I'm leaving town at the ungodly hour of sometime-before-noon tomorrow, so I didn't want to wait. So if anything's horribly wrong, let me know and I'll fix it.

* * *

Artie descended the stairs in a hurry, not breaking his gaze from Pete's likeness on the tiny screen in his hand, nor the nonstop stream of information he was sharing with the younger agents as he made his way across the room. Even when he finally noticed the empty chair in front of the computer, he merely hitched up slightly, turning his focus back to the mission at hand when he caught sight of a little movement in the overstuffed armchair across the room. Without a second thought, he grasped the mouse and continued scanning what little information Claudia had brought up on the screen. He frowned in frustration; this wasn't one of her better attempts at research.

"Claudia, why did you... Wikipedia has more information on Napoleon than this!" he groused in annoyance, finally turning to look squarely at his young assistant, curled up on the chair and half asleep already. "What's wrong?"

"Girl stuff," the redhead responded quietly, flapping one hand dismissively at her boss. She didn't have to open her eyes to know Artie had gotten even more flustered, flushing slightly as he turned his focus back to flooding poor Pete with more random information than one brain had any business containing. Claudia knew she should listen, interject... be useful somehow. But she just didn't care, she realized, unable to force her eyes to open or her brain to engage. She let Artie's soothing, if a little hyperactive, cadence wash over her as he did the job that he had become accustomed to doing with a companion. She couldn't see him glancing worriedly at her several times as he worked, but she wasn't surprised when Pete asked what was wrong.

"Nothing, Pete, Claudia's just... you know, I've got to call you back," Artie muttered, distracted, closing his farnsworth without another glance at his agents. He stood quietly for a moment and peered at the young woman. Girl stuff, hah. He wasn't sure what was wrong, but he knew that was a lie. The only thing he didn't know was how to approach her. For a second, his antisocial tendency kicked in and he turned back to the computer, but concern overwhelmed him, for the girl he'd come to look at as a daughter. Sucking up his nerve, he crossed the room in three steps and reached out to lay a hand on Claudia's cheek. Almost before his nerves registered anything, he jerked his hand back with a gasp. Claudia moaned her dislike as she turned to snuggle more fully into the chair cushions, while Artie stared at his hand. He could still feel the warmth of her skin, as if he'd gotten burned.

"You're sick," Artie said with a small degree of indignation at having discovered this information the hard way. Claudia merely grunted in response. Anything else would take too much effort. Artie raised one eyebrow, then grabbed the telephone to request a doctor visit for his young assistant. Privately, Claudia snickered to herself, wondering if he'd been just waiting for an opportunity to call Vanessa Calder for a visit. But if she were to be completely honest with herself, she felt immense relief just to know Artie had noticed her distress and called for help; this really did warrant Dr. Calder's expertise. She turned and pried one eye open a microscopic amount, just enough to smile gratefully toward Artie's blurry form, getting a worried sigh in response.

"Do you want to go lay on the couch upstairs, or just stay here?" he asked quietly. Claudia shook her head and gripped the chair with one hand. "Okay, stay... yeah. She'll be here in a few hours, she's trying to hurry." Artie cringed in empathy when Claudia whimpered. He knew the thought of a few hours' wait didn't please her, but at least he wasn't hauling her to the urgent care clinic in town to spend a few hours waiting in their miserable chairs and overly-chilled building. He turned back to his work, quickly losing all sense of time as he set aside his concern for the girl curled up in the corner, and focused on meeting Pete and Myka's needs. Claudia allowed the familiar sounds of Artie working soothe her to sleep, hoping against all reason that she would wake up feeling miraculously all better.

Claudia jolted awake when something grasped her wrist firmly, making her feel threatened and trapped. Her eyes flew open and she jerked back with a gasp, escaping her attacker's grip before bothering to evaluate the situation. When the room came into focus, she found herself nearly face to face with one Vanessa Calder, who was crouching in front of the chair.

"Sorry, Claudia, I didn't mean to startle you," the older woman said quietly, her gentle tone setting the teen at ease. Claudia nodded, giving her permission to go on. She glanced around until her eyes found Artie, watching from across the room as he pretended to work, looking prepared to morph instantly into a mother bear and tear the doctor to shreds if she even thought of harming his young apprentice. Knowing she was safe, that he wasn't allowing his affections for the pretty lady to interfere with the task of protecting Claudia, she let her eyes drift lazily back to the fingers that had again slid around her wrist to seek her pulse point.

Artie, for his part, stood quietly and held some papers in his hands as a prop, to pretend to be reading if the good doctor turned around to look at him. In reality, he was observing every detail of the way Vanessa interacted with Claudia, from the experienced hand feeling for swollen lymph nodes to the tender fingers brushing through a mop of red hair as the two talked. She would make a good mother for the young woman, he mused, then turned his eyes awkwardly to the file in his hand, wondering where on earth _that_ thought had come from. Somewhere inside, of course, he knew that Claudia had become a non-negotiable part of his life, and that anybody else he allowed into his heart had to be acceptable to her, as well... and, in that same deep, dark somewhere, he knew that sort of permanence was what he sought in relationships, and the lack thereof in most marriages was a big part of why he'd thrown himself into his work and kept at bay everybody he ever might have loved. And, also in the mysterious depths, he'd known for years that this Vanessa might be worth letting go of that habit, just this once But Artie, entirely unprepared for the idea that he might allow a lady friend to become a permanent fixture in his life, shoved that right back to the depths from which it came.

"Sweetheart, does it hurt here?" he heard Vanessa ask, glancing up to see her prod gently at Claudia's cheeks and browbones, causing her young patient to wince in pain. Immediately, the papers were flung in the general direction of the table and Artie had crossed the room, only stopping when he was in striking distance. Vanessa, unable to miss his obvious distress, gave him a gentle smile. "Hey whoa, easy there, Dad, I'm done now, I just had to touch to be sure before I start prescribing."

"What's wrong with her?" he asked, his agitation somewhat reduced.

"Claudia had a cold, but instead of going away on its own as viruses tend to do, this one made a mess of her sinus cavities and allowed a bacterial infection to settle in. Antibiotics, steam vaporizer, and warm drinks, and she should be feeling better in the next day, maybe two at most, and back to her usual self in 3-4 days. Do you want me to stay with her while you run this prescription to the pharmacy?" She tried to hand the paper to Artie, who was too busy frowning in intense thought to notice.

"You had a cold?" he asked. "And you didn't tell me?" His young apprentice shrugged in reply.

"It's a cold, Artie," she grumbled. "I took a vitamin and a decongestant and went to bed early a couple nights."

"She did all the right things," Vanessa pitched in helpfully. "They just sometimes do this, especially with all the crud in the air as you've come into autumn around here. And she did just recently fly to Hartford and back... the altitude change may have aggravated her sinuses a little, at an already-vulnerable time."

"You had a cold, and you didn't tell me?" Artie repeated, raising one bushy eyebrow as he peered at Claudia. His irritation melted into a small smile when he heard her muttered apology. "Next time, tell me. I would have told you to go home and sleep it off for a day. Maybe it wouldn't have helped this, but... but I would have tried." Claudia nodded her acceptance of his request.

"You want to run to the pharmacy?" Vanessa tried again, and this time Artie noticed the paper in her hand. He took it gently, muttering as he grabbed his coat, before he lurched to a stop.

"You'll be okay with Va... with Dr. Calder, while I'm gone?" Claudia smiled slightly and nodded weakly. "You want... you should go upstairs. I'll... hang on," Artie muttered as he slipped back out of his coat and tossed it on the table. Without warning, he wrapped his arms around Claudia and pulled her up from the armchair, causing her to gasp in surprise and throw her arms around his neck. Once she was sure he wasn't going to drop her, though, her eyes drifted back closed, never noticing the way the doctor's eyes misted over as she watched the uncharacteristically tender way Artie handled his teenage employee. She'd called him "dad" earlier just to yank his chain, but clearly she'd been more accurate than she'd realized at the moment. And she would be lying to herself if she didn't admit there was something just a little attractive about a guy who had no problem arresting, bronzing, even shooting people, and yet could easily shift gears when faced with one sick, and no doubt very miserable, Claudia.

Vanessa followed, keeping a small distance behind as she knew Artie wasn't giving the slightest consideration to keeping Claudia's feet from bumping into her as they ascended the stairs and made their way to the sitting area. Once they got upstairs, she hurried ahead to grab the pillow she saw laying on a shelf and toss it on the sofa, doubling back to fetch the blanket that had been folded nearby so she could lay it over her patient once Artie got her settled into the cushions. She took a seat in the chair nearby and settled in for the expected hour or two that it would take him to get into town and fill the prescription.

"Do you need anything else while I'm in town?" Artie asked softly. "Ice cream, maybe?""

"Pop... stickles?" Claudia asked, frowning in confusion but clearly unable to figure out what had gone wrong, phonetically, with her answer. Artie laughed gently.

"Popsicles, I think I can manage that," he answered, supplying the word that escaped her mind at the moment. His hand drifted gently over the top of her head before he turned and left without another word, leaving Vanessa bemused by his odd blend of tenderness and complete social ineptitude.

The pair sat in relative silence as they waited, Vanessa curled up with a medical journal she'd been meaning to get to, while she glanced over at her sleeping charge every few minutes. No wonder Artie was worried. Claudia was practically the embodiment of hyperactivity. She'd never seen the girl so still. After about twenty minutes, she couldn't take the unnerving silence any longer. Vanessa put her magazine down and tipped out of her chair, easing herself onto her knees in front of the sofa.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" she asked softly. "What can I do for you?"

"Hurts," Claudia moaned quietly. "Kept waking me up all night, too." Vanessa sighed and sat back more fully onto her shins, thinking for a moment before she reached for her farnsworth. In short order, she had Artie's full attention... well, mostly full, since he was also trying to park the car, figure out what pocket he'd put the prescription paper into, and get untangled from his seatbelt.

"What's wrong?" he snapped, worry coming across as extreme irritation.

"We're fine," she answered just as quickly. "She's in a lot of pain, though, Artie. I didn't realize it's keeping her up nights. No wonder she's not getting better; a body needs rest. I'm going to call in a painkiller to go with that antibiotic, and go ahead and give her something right now, from my bag, is that all right?"

"Yeah, yeah... whatever you... go call them, so I can get out of here faster... people all over the place today." Without another word, the screen went dark, provoking a chuckle from the woman. She rummaged through her bag and handed a pill to Claudia, watching to be sure it got swallowed and not lost in the couch cushions before she made her way downstairs to send the second prescription in electronically.

It was getting on towards an hour and a half since Artie had left, and a good hour since Claudia had taken the painkiller she'd been given, when the younger woman rolled over on the sofa to make eye contact. Vanessa chuckled gently as she took in the girl's glassy-eyed, calm expression.

"Feeling a little less pain, are we?" she asked. Claudia nodded.

"Thank you," she said simply. Vanessa nodded in response, folding the page in her magazine and setting the closed periodical on her lap. "Are you gonna marry Artie?" Claudia suddenly asked, getting a surprised blink in response.

"Marry..? Well, he certainly hasn't asked," Vanessa answered timidly. Illness apparently did odd things to the warehouse's first junior agent, she mused.

"He should. Or you should. You can do that these days, you know."

"And why do you think I should ask?" Vanessa said, amused now, and curious as to what was going on in the girl's head.

"He likes you. You like him. You'd make a good mom. You already know about the artifacts. And then he wouldn't have to regrow his appendix and scare the hell out of us just to have an excuse to see you."

"Regrow his..." Vanessa was too shocked to even finish the question that she was dying to ask. Claudia simply nodded in response.

"P. T. Barnum's top. Regrows appendages, or... you know... whatever. You didn't know that's what he was up to?"

"I didn't know there was an artifact that regrows body parts," Vanessa answered truthfully. "And if it's in the warehouse, I'm betting it's too hazardous to, say, let the medical establishment use on amputees, so... I'm a little concerned that he's been using it at all." Claudia shook her head at that.

"It's mostly safe. Just has some... skeletons in its closet." Claudia fell quiet for a few moments, and Vanessa thought about opening her magazine again, but the girl seemed like she was thinking, so she waited patiently. "You could at least go to dinner with him tonight, you know... or have Leena make something. Tell him you want to stick around and be sure I'm doing all right, if you want. Lord knows Artie doesn't have the guts to do it... appendix regrowing... honestly, who's he think he's fooling with that one." Claudia shook her head with a chuckle. "I want you to stay for dinner," she finally said simply, before turning back over to snuggle into her pillow. Vanessa picked up her magazine again, but she didn't find it very intriguing any longer, for some reason, instead choosing to study the girl who was already drifting off to sleep. Suddenly she caught sight of the top, on the uppermost bookshelf in the corner. A slow grin spread across her face as she formulated a plan. She got up and retrieved the artifact from the shelf, setting it on the endtable next to her.

When she heard the door open downstairs, and Artie's footsteps on the stairwell, Vanessa set her magazine aside and picked up the top, in its container. She'd meant to do this with a straight face, but she couldn't help the smile that played across her lips as she watched Artie ascend into the room, then turned her gaze to the clear display case she was turning over and over in her hands. Artie watched silently, wondering why he suddenly felt as if he'd walked into the lions' den.

"You should really be careful with that," he finally said, breaking the silence. "It's an artifact."

"You should probably be careful with it, too," Vanessa replied, "since it tends to grow back internal organs without regard to the fact that the previous editions were removed for having a tendency to endanger your life." Artie shuffled in his place, then crossed the room to put down the pharmacy bag. Damn that child, he thought. He'd spent hours today, worrying about her well-being, torturing himself by tolerating the insanity in town, and she'd repaid him how? By telling Vanessa all of his secrets, apparently.

"And what else have you and Claudia been talking about?" he asked, not sure he wanted the answer, but it might as well all be out in the open now.

"Oh, not a lot. She came to a while back, but between the infection and the painkiller I gave her, I doubt she was thinking clearly."

"What did she talk about?" Artie repeated, more firmly this time even though he still couldn't quite bring himself to make eye contact with the good doctor.

"She informed me that it's acceptable, in these modern times, for a woman to propose marriage to a man," Vanessa began, laughing gently at the way Artie flushed and sputtered in shock at that. "And that it's completely reasonable for the woman to do the asking-out on a date."

"Oh, really?" Artie asked, his even tone being thwarted by the deepening flush spreading across his face and into his ears. Vanessa nodded with a mischievous grin. Tormenting her longtime colleague and friend was turning out to be more fun than she'd hoped.

"On a more serious note," she said, sensing the need to shift the conversation back to the practical, "there are some herbs I want her to be taking, that will help speed her recovery, and I'd like to head over to Leena's and make them into some soup, and a tea, that she can be given twice a day." The awkward conversation from a moment ago almost forgotten, Artie immediately began to mutter his agreement as he shoved Claudia's medications back into his jacket pocket, and leaned over to gather her up off the sofa. Leading the way downstairs, he loaded his passengers into the car and took them home.


	2. Chapter 2

While Artie settled Claudia on the sofa downstairs, where he could keep an eye on the little menace, Vanessa set to work in the kitchen, stirring this and that into a pot of water, inhaling carefully as she measured a little more of one thing, then another, into the brew. Artie stood in the doorway watching, mesmerized. He was accustomed to Leena's very practiced, scent-based approach to cooking, but this was really the first time he'd watched the process. There was something appealing about it. Then again, it could just be the cook catching his interest. After a while, he realized Claudia had woken up, and was watching him intently. Artie crossed the room to lean over her, running a hand through her hair.

"Do you need something?" he asked softly.

"She'd make a really good mom," Claudia said, not that Artie realized it was the second time today she'd said it, and not that Claudia realized that Artie had already had the same thought. He stammered for a moment, then stood up just enough to turn toward the kitchen, where the doctor was watching them through the doorway as she continued to stir.

"What did you give her?" he asked in frustration. This was not like Claudia at all... maybe these thoughts were always somewhere within her, but it wasn't her style to jump into things that she knew she had no business interfering with.

"Just a painkiller," Vanessa said.

"Just a painkiller?" Artie shot back, his tone one of utter disbelief.

"Well, it might have been of the... strong... variety," she answered with a smile.

"Well, that explains that," Artie muttered.

"What does it explain?" Vanessa asked. Her curiosity only increased when he flushed all over again, and she looked to Claudia to answer her question, stepping a little closer to be able to hear the tired girl.

"He's just all wound up because I said you'd be a good mom," Claudia answered, eyes drifting closed again already. Vanessa shook her head and laughed as she returned to the stove. She hadn't been planning to tell Artie that detail, but apparently it was really important to Claudia right now. It wasn't a moment later that she realized she had company. Turning a little bit, she found a fairly stern-looking Artie leaning against the refrigerator, staring at her.

"You know, kids often take an active interest in a single parent's love life," Vanessa commented, trying to go at this from an educational approach.

"I'm not..." Artie began, letting the words die on his lips when he saw the incredulous look she was giving him as she continued tending her cooking. "What?" he finally asked.

"You're really going to try that one, after today?" she asked, amusement evident on her features... features that Artie observed looked even more appealing when she was amused... he suddenly shook his head slightly, shoving those thoughts away. Now was most certainly not the time. Vanessa took his gesture to mean he wasn't going to attempt to feed her that nonsense, which wasn't altogether incorrect. Artie had already come to the realization that it wasn't worth the hassle. Besides, he was just a tad hung-up on the fact that, as Vanessa had so bluntly pointed out, this bizarre path life had taken him on had led him to become a single parent. Oh, sure, Claudia was an adult in her own right, twenty years old even though he continued to think of her as a teen, and even their shared history didn't give him any claim over her, but this was simply the way things had worked out as the relationship had grown over the past year or two.

"Kids have a vested interest in the whole deal, after all," Vanessa continued, shaking Artie out of his thoughts. "They innately know that the marriage is supposed to be the central relationship, but that's really not... not easy to do when the kids came into the parent's life first, for whatever reason, instead of the usual way around. They often look at potential love interests while asking themselves if this is somebody who they can handle being first in their mom or dad's life, if this person will love and respect them and not use the new-found authority to harm them. Claudia is probably merely expressing, through both the haze of infection and the rosy view of a teenage girl, that she recognizes that I respect her, and she doesn't find me threatening to her sense of security."

"All she's ever wanted was a normal life," Artie said in reply, entirely unsure what to make of the wealth of information he'd just received. He was used to being the one doing the teaching. The doctor laughed outright at Artie's statement, bringing all those confusing thoughts right back to the surface of Artie's mind. Her laugh was just as attractive as the warm eyes and serene smile that came along with.

"A normal life, here, at the warehouse? Boy, did she come to the wrong place!" Artie rolled his eyes at Vanessa's words, but he found himself chuckling along with her... she was right, after all.

"So..." Artie began, shifting his weight and twisting his hands together. "So, maybe you could... stay for dinner? Be sure she's doing all right with the meds, and the herbs and stuff... before you leave?"

Vanessa glanced back towards her anxious companion, a warmth in her eyes even though the smile had faded to seriousness. "I thought you'd never ask," she replied. "This has to simmer for a couple hours before it's ready for her. Does she want to watch a movie in the meantime, by chance? Couch looks big enough for three."

In short order, Artie found himself trapped on the sofa, Claudia's head resting on his lap with a couple pillows to perfect the reclining angle, her sock-clad feet propped on the doctor's lap, and some dumb chick flick playing on the TV. If he were perfectly honest with himself, it was a cute movie, provoking the occasional laugh from him as much as his two companions. Artie just felt slightly awkward enjoying something that didn't have anything to do with work, world history, or both. Then again, he could have been chuckling at the way Claudia kept twitching as the doctor worked on various pressure points in her very ticklish feet. And by the time Leena got home from the grocery store to begin preparing dinner, the trio had settled even more comfortably, Artie absently stroking Claudia's hair with one hand while the other stretched down to rest on her waist, clutching Vanessa's hand gently. Not the most traditional date, Artie realized, but somehow this seemed to fit. Leena stood and watched, an unreadable look of thoughtfulness on her face, before she began preparing dinner. Rosemary chicken and roast vegetables for Artie and his lady friend, she decreed, and Vanessa's soup and some toast for Claudia, if she felt up to it.

When the movie ended, Vanessa gently moved the legs draped over her lap, and got up to go tend the soup and start brewing tea. Claudia, who'd dozed through half the movie, began to whine and grumble, swatting Artie's hand from her head and scooting her body away from him she came awake.

"What just happened?" Artie asked, perplexed. "Everything was just fine all afternoon." Vanessa watched for a moment as she added yet more ingredients to her cooking. At least this time the ingredients looked like food, Artie noticed, watching as dry noodles and chopped carrots found their way into the boiling concoction.

"Painkiller wore off," Vanessa finally said, her usually quiet voice raised to project over the activity in the kitchen. "Being sick hurts, Artie." She watched him stare at his young companion with just a touch of horror on his face before he scrambled to find the prescriptions in his pocket. Leena brought a glass of water and helped him read the labels, ensuring that he wasn't about to give her the wrong thing, before she coaxed Claudia into taking the pills pressed into her hand. Artie's hand drifted to her hair in a soothing gesture as she gulped them down. Claudia's whining immediately turned to very colorful language, of the sort Artie wasn't used to hearing from her, at being touched and bothered.

"She's fine, Artie," Leena said in a reassuring tone, unable to ignore the man's worry any longer. His aura was going to give her a headache if he didn't calm down pretty quick. "Everything hurts her right now, and even gentle touch feels like an attack. Let the medicine do its job, and she'll settle down again."

"What should I..."

"Just sit with her. She needs you to stay nearby, even if she's not showing it in the most understandable way right now. Dr. Calder and I have everything else well in hand. All you need to do is stay here, and grow a little thicker skin. She's going to be like this for a day or two." A day or two. Artie blew out a frustrated sigh. This was going to be the longest, most annoying 24 to 48 hours of his life. At least Pete and Myka had their case under control, he thought as he watched the girl curled up at the other end of the sofa, looking more like a wounded badger than the affectionate teen he'd grown accustomed to.

His entire life, these days, was protecting his home and his family from all the danger in the world. Of course, protecting the warehouse had been in his job description from day one, but it had taken on a deeper meaning, a job somehow more firmly attached to his sense of identity since Pete, Myka, and Claudia had come into his life. Mrs. Frederic had once said that Pete and Myka weren't the best agents the warehouse had ever had, and he'd sort of wanted to disagree with her at the time, and yet now he could see that was true. What had made her tell the regents that he was the best agent they'd ever had was that she'd finally found the right subordinates for him, finally stumbled upon some agents whose brilliant, if a little unusual, approach was only outdone by their surprising ability to drive Artie to do his job out of a sense of love and duty, a need to protect and provide for those in his care.

And yet he couldn't protect the team's most vulnerable member from a simple head cold. Artie set the pill bottles down roughly, frustrated beyond all reason. He wanted a magic wand, damn it... wasn't there an artifact he could use on her to fix this, a whole lot faster than pills, soup, and tea? Of course there wasn't... if there were any safe option at all, they'd carry it on missions, to reduce the very real risks faced by warehouse agents. Finally accepting that there was nothing more he could do that wasn't already being done, Artie again settled on the couch, grabbing a book from the end table and pulling the recliner handle to open out the footrest so he could at least try to relax before Leena's "you're going to give yourself a heart attack" looks turned into outright death glares.

Artie hated sitting around doing nothing, and reading up on European history definitely felt like doing nothing, no matter how pertinent it was to his job. It just wasn't in his nature to sit quietly while he allowed others to work so tenaciously as Leena and Vanessa were doing tonight. He thought briefly of making himself useful in the kitchen, but he knew what would happen if he tried that. The fried chicken disaster of 1993 remained fresh in Leena's memory, and in the woodwork if you knew where to look. Leena had sworn up and down the explosion had been his fault, and she'd made him buy her new linens to replace the ones that burnt up in the resulting fire, but he'd never figured out what could cause perfectly edible chicken to suddenly turn into Molotov cocktails when dropped into a deep fryer. Artie chuckled at the memory before turning back to his book. Much as it amused him now, he wasn't exactly interested in giving Leena cause to regale his lady friend with that or any other tales of his ineptitude in the kitchen. No, as suggested by his waistline, Artie's culinary specialty was his ability to appreciate whatever was set before him. Best to leave the cooking to the experts, and keep his nose firmly in his own business. And so he sat and read... well, pretended to read, anyhow, until Leena brought Claudia's dinner and sent him into the dining room for his.

Artie paused as he entered the dining room, then took a couple steps back to glare at Leena. She might have been able to explain away the fresh flowers from the garden, and even the lit candles; Leena thought that such things would counter the sense of chaos and urgency that she seemed to think followed Artie everywhere he went. Linen napkins, however, and the fact that the table was set for two... now that was unique, even for the enigmatic woman. And anybody, even someone as obtuse as Artie often was, could see plain as day what she was up to here. The scowl melted into what he knew had to be a goofy, insecure grin when Vanessa came around the corner, carrying a couple of baking dishes in mitt-covered hands.

"Leena wanted to sit with Claudia, be sure she eats enough," she explained, almost apologetically. "Apparently she has a tendency not to eat or drink much, and that'll only make her feel worse." Artie raised one eyebrow. Other than a nasty case of chickenpox she'd picked up years ago, he'd never known her to be sick at all, and neither had Leena. He glanced back one more time toward the den, shaking his head in a combination of irritation and amusement before sitting down to a simple but rather delightful dinner. And unlike the few other dinner companions he'd had over the decades, Artie found it easy to make conversation, chatting about some of his more interesting tasks, and Claudia's occasional misadventures, interspersed with Vanessa's chatter about some of the more unusual cases she'd run into over the years. She gave him hassle about his appendix, much to his dismay, but he had to concede that it was one of the more unusual things she'd run into, anyway.

"You know, I should probably stay here tonight," Vanessa said as they finished dinner. "Keep close watch over my patient... she's extremely important to the warehouse, after all."

"That is the lamest excuse I have ever heard," Artie said, unable to hold back his blunt opinion.

"Yeah, but it's better than however you were going to frame the suggestion." Artie nodded with a chuckle. He'd had no idea how he was going to make the suggestion, actually, but he was certain it would have been pathetic beyond all reason.

"I don't know where to put you up... I could put you in Myka's room, but they may well get home in the middle of the night. The case was going well, last I heard. Can't put you in my room..." he muttered, trailing off as he turned red for about the millionth time today.

"No, I wouldn't want Claudia to have that for an example," Vanessa said. "I don't want her to get the idea that you just hop into bed with anybody who invites you to stay for dinner... she deserves to be treated better than that. And so does her father." Artie blinked in surprise at that, but before he got the chance to react, they were interrupted.

"I'll put the ladies in your room, and you can take Claudia's bed," Leena suggested as she slipped into the room to grab dishes from the table. "I'll go make up the bedrooms now; conundrum solved."

"She's probably going to wake up in the night anyway," Vanessa added. "If one of us has to get up, it should be the person who can actually treat her symptoms. And I'd much prefer to simply turn over, than have to get out of bed, put a robe on, go down the hall... that's crazy." Artie peered suspiciously at Vanessa.

"Okay, but you wake me up if you think she needs me," he said. "And there will be no plotting between the two of you," he added sternly. Vanessa's amused smile did nothing to reassure Artie, even as she nodded her agreement. He just knew that he was going to wake up to find Claudia having proposed marriage on his behalf, if she hadn't already. But, realizing there wasn't much he could do about that, he allowed himself to be coaxed out into the backyard garden to sit in the crisp autumn air with Vanessa, taking in the few late blooms among the greenery, and the stars above.


	3. Chapter 3

The garden was still beautiful, despite the cooling autumn weather, but even still, it didn't take long for Artie's companion to begin shivering. Without even thinking about it, Artie unbuttoned his trenchcoat and pulled her close, wrapping the coat around the both of them. He didn't realize what he'd done until he drew a deep breath a moment later, and got a snootful of... well he wasn't exactly sure what, but it wasn't Claudia's tropical blossom shampoo. Barely concealing his shock, Artie almost let go, but stopped himself when he realized this was actually kind of nice. He had always wondered why women tended to not wear warm enough clothes for the season. Perhaps this was the answer, he mused as he settled his arm around Vanessa's waist, fitting himself to her curves.

"You want to go in and warm up?" Artie asked after a little bit longer in the silence. Vanessa glanced at him for a moment, a knowing smile on her face, before she turned her gaze back skyward.

"Claudia's fine," she said.

"Of course she is," Artie answered.

"So quit worrying about her. And don't even bother telling me you're not. I can feel it in your arms, and I can see it on your face. If you want to fool somebody, go try Leena because it's not going to work here."

"Well... maybe just... just a little bit," Artie admitted.

"A little bit? You're going to give yourself a stroke or something, and this is just a little bit?" She grinned at his sheepish expression. He knew he'd been caught.

"It's my – she's my responsibility." Vanessa nodded at that.

"Artie, your job isn't to worry, it's to take care of things. There is a difference, however subtle it may seem at times." Artie bobbed his head thoughtfully at her answer.

"Okay. What do I... how do I take care of things right now?" he asked. Vanessa grinned again, and he knew he was about to get some kind of snarky answer.

"Well you can start by going in there and giving her another of the antibiotic that's still in your coat pocket. And then you can set yourself an alarm so you'll quit forgetting them." Vanessa bit back a laugh when her warmth suddenly vanished with a whispered curse as Artie dashed back into the house, coat tail flapping in the breeze created by his sudden movement. She followed him into the house, standing nearby and setting her own wristwatch alarm. "I'll get the next dose since I'll be the one with her." She was surprised when he turned around and shook his head firmly.

"It's my job to take care of these things," he said, as if that explained it all.

"Artie, It's going to be five in the morning when she needs the next..." Vanessa began, then trailed off when she saw the determined look in his eyes. She was confused for just a moment before understanding came to her. Dragging himself out of bed at some ungodly hour to make sure Claudia got her medicine on-time was one of the few ways he felt like he could take care of things right now. "All right, you want to get out of a perfectly warm bed before sunrise, be my guest," she said, couching her understanding in a comfortably wry manner. "I'll just go get my bag out of the car before it gets any colder out there," Vanessa added as she picked up Artie's keys from the end table, moving quickly to get out to the car, get her things, and make it back inside before she froze solid. South Dakota wasn't exactly known for its warmth, but this autumn was proving to be just a little more on the cool side.

When she came back into the house, she could hear Artie and Claudia talking in low tones. Creeping up to the den doorway, she leaned against it and simply observed, feeling just slightly like this wasn't her place, but for some reason she just didn't care right now.

"You and Vanessa are going to sleep in my bed tonight," he said to his young companion, "so as soon as you feel up to it, you need to go upstairs and get yourself changed and into bed."

"Why?" Claudia asked, confusion etched on her features.

"She had a long flight, and you're sick; you both need plenty of rest." Claudia shook her head at Artie's answer.

"Why am I sleeping with her instead of you?" Vanessa snickered inwardly as she leaned more fully against the maple frame of the doorway. The girl certainly could get to the heart of the matter when she wanted to.

"That's not how this works," Artie said, shaking his head and turning a highly amusing shade of red. Vanessa wondered if she should quit lurking and go upstairs, but forget appealing, this whole "dad" act was downright hot, not to mention entertaining. Artie's level of awkwardness was off the charts, and still climbing as he tried to figure out how to have this impromptu conversation about dating and intimacy with the girl who'd invaded his life and his heart. "I'm not going to..." he began, then stopped, drawing a deep breath. "You don't just..."

"Oh just say it," Claudia said, looking like she'd already pieced together what he was getting at, much to her own dismay.

"You don't sleep with somebody just because they accepted a dinner invitation," Artie spat all at once, in such a rush that the words practically fell out on top of one another. Claudia's uncomfortable expression changed to a momentary cringe before she recovered.

"See... much better to get it over with," she said. "Now let me up so I can go get ready for bed." Artie jumped back out of the way and the girl pulled herself up from the couch, leaving a blanket in a heap on the cushions as she wandered towards the stairs. Vanessa leaped back and tried to look like she'd just come back in from the car, though she didn't think she'd pulled it off, as the two ladies made their way up the stairs and into Artie's suite.

"Way to throw the whole moral lesson of the day at the sick teenager," Claudia said loudly toward the closed bathroom door, causing Vanessa to freeze in place for a moment as she pulled her pajamas on. Nope, definitely hadn't managed to conceal her presence from the teen earlier, she realized with a touch of aggravation. That couldn't be good for Claudia's very delicate sense of trust, she knew. "I'm dressed now, by the way," the younger woman added. Vanessa opened the bathroom door with some level of concern for what she was walking into.

"It's not just a moral lesson," Vanessa began, crawling into bed on the side with the coordinated pillowcase was hers, assuming that the neon purple pillow belonged to her roommate. She took stock of the girl standing by Artie's reading chair, clutching a box of tissues and looking warily at her like an injured badger with a head cold. "Come sit down" she said, pulling the sheets back and pasting the most inviting expression possible onto her face. She wondered idly what Artie had had to do to break through the protective walls she could see around the girl's heart. Vanessa thought briefly of some of the harder parts of her own teenage years. She'd always craved honesty and authenticity from the adults who thought they had any business interfering in her life, she mused as she considered how to be authentic and honest without giving the teen more information than she wanted or needed.

"Claudia, I've been burned enough for one lifetime. That... even with somebody who I do trust with everything up to and including my life, even just sharing sleeping space comes later in a relationship, for me. Artie and I both know firsthand the the damage that can be done by rushing into things, and we don't want that for ourselves, or for you. That's why he tries to talk about these things even though it's painfully awkward and uncomfortable for him."

"Yeah, not just him," Claudia groused with a slight shudder. "Pretty high up on the list of things I didn't really want to know go on in his head, but it's kind of hard to avoid that realization when I get the stupid lectures." Vanessa smiled gently at that. She remembered her own horror at having these sorts of conversations with her mother, once upon a time.

"Yeah, it's not fun, I know. It wasn't fun when the adults in my life taught me these things either, but sweetheart, Artie's worst nightmare is for your heart to be hurt as badly as his has been. Try to remember that when you feel like you're getting an uncomfortable lecture you'd rather avoid. You have never been fifty-someodd years old, but he and I have both been twenty. We don't know everything, but we know which holes we desperately want to guide you away from, so you don't fall into them like we did."

"And sleeping with a guy who asks you to dinner is one of those holes," Claudia said.

"Pretty big one, yeah," Vanessa responded. Claudia nodded in thought, before pulling her toothbrush out of her pajama pocket and slipping into the bathroom with it. She didn't speak again until she was back in bed and Artie had been by to say goodnight.

"You know," Claudia finally said after the light was out, "it's nice to know somebody worries enough to at least try." Vanessa chuckled in the dark. She thought to reply, but nothing really came to mind, and only a few minutes passed before a heavy, almost-snoring breathing filled the room. She took her cue from her patient and turned over to get comfortable and let sleep overtake her.

* * *

The beginnings of what would become sunlight had just begun to fill the room when Artie's alarm chirped, dragging him out of a deep sleep. He groaned and shut it off, trying to remember what the alarm had been about. Suddenly, it came to him. Claudia's pills. In a heartbeat he flung off the covers and jumped up, gasping when his feet hit the cold floor as he leaped onto the small rug by Claudia's bedside. He was accustomed to his own rug, which was a quite large target. Sliding feet into furry slippers, he trudged down the stairs and into the den where he'd inadvertently left his coat the night before. He'd just wrapped his fingers around two pill bottles when he heard the front door fling open and Pete and Myka trudge straight in the house and up the stairs. Artie smiled at the sound. He'd felt bad for being out of touch for so much of this case. He was looking forward to hearing the story of how it had gone, once they'd had enough sleep. Artie paused in the kitchen to fill a glass of water for Claudia before he headed back up the stairs. By the time he got upstairs, only Pete was still out in the hall. Artie smiled. At least he could greet one of them before they crashed for a few hours.

"Whoa, dude, you could at least hang a sock on the..." Pete said, spinning around and trailing off when he realized he heard footsteps on the stairs. His wide eyes locked on Artie's face. "You're not in your room."

"I see you've made it back from France," Artie said, as if that reply was exactly what Pete had asked for.

"Yep," Pete said, shooting a curious glance past Artie's open bedroom door as he allowed the conversation to shift for a moment. "Napoleon's platform shoes snagged, bagged, tagged, and waiting in your office. So... who's in your bed if you're not?"

"Dr. Calder – "Artie began, pausing when Pete interrupted with some sort of childish whoop of excitement, or approval, or... well, something.

"– and Claudia," he finished when Pete fell silent. Pete's eyebrows nearly went through the ceiling at that.

"Ouch, didn't know she swung that way," Pete commented, causing Artie's eyes to roll almost of their own volition. He smacked the younger man's upper arm, causing the pills to rattle in their bottles before he showed Pete the bottles and gestured towards the glass of water in his other hand, partly in explanation and partly in frustration that his brilliant young agent had failed to observe something so obvious.

"Claudia has a nasty cold. Dr. Calder stayed overnight to keep watch on her. I didn't want to put her in Myka's room in case you two got home in the middle of the night."

"Yeah, I guess that wouldn't have been a pleasant way to wake up, since Myka doesn't even look before she throws her bag on her bed," Pete said, rubbing his shoulder as if he knew this from experience. "Anyway, I'm going to hit the hay. Tell you all about the trip when I wake up!" Pete didn't wait for a response before slipping into his own room and shutting the door. Artie shook his head with a chuckle as he made his way to the other bedroom and approached the sleeping patient. Glancing over to the other side of the bed, he found Vanessa's usually-bright eyes peering back at him, looking half-drunk with exhaustion.

"She sleep through the night?" he asked, already knowing the answer. Vanessa shook her head in reply.

"It was a little rough. She said the pain was tremendously better, but the sheer congestion and coughing woke her up a couple times. It got better once I set up the vaporizer and found the menthol rub." Artie's eyes narrowed at that.

"I would have preferred to help with that," he said, his calm tone doing nothing to cover over his anger at having been left out of this stuff.

"And I would have woken you," Vanessa said, her eyes more clear now, "but Leena was already up to make herself some tea, and she came up to see if we were okay. She found it all before I figured out where I'd left my slippers, so we just set it up and took care of things. I tell you what, though. Your stupid vaporizer leaks, so you can mop up the mess and refill it to your little heart's content tonight." Her straightforward, terse response shook Artie just slightly. He hadn't meant to be ungrateful for the doctor's sacrifices in the night, and yet that's exactly what he'd just communicated, he realized.

"I'm sorry," Artie said, putting his hands up as if that would somehow put the brakes on this hopefully-minor tiff. "I didn't mean – thank you for taking care of her. It's not that I don't appreciate the help... I just feel inept at times, and I hate that."

"Artie, she's a teenage girl, you _are_ inept, we all are. It'll get easier in ten or fifteen more years." Vanessa chuckled when Artie groaned at that thought. "Show me what you're about to give her," she said, and Artie opened his hand to reveal the pills he'd taken out. Vanessa nodded her approval, and he nudged the sleeping girl awake... or at least to a lesser level of sleep, in which Claudia was able to grab pills and water and swallow before flopping back against her pillow. "Just keep setting your alarm and being sure she gets them on-time, and she'll be fine in another day or so," Vanessa said with a soft smile. "And... you know, nevermind. I'll write up some other instructions to help you get through the next day or two, before I leave. I just need a couple hours' more sleep before I can think clearly enough to do that."

"You can sleep as long as you need," Artie said. Vanessa chuckled gently at the sheepish yet adoring grin that spread across his face as he tried in his own way to coax a few more hours out of her. She yawned and checked the clock.

"I'll leave after lunch," she said, getting a nod from him in reply. She watched as Artie, without another word, leaned over to kiss Claudia's forehead and then shuffle out of the room and back to bed for just a little bit longer. Vanessa glanced over at the vaporizer, taking note of the amount of water in the bucket on the floor underneath it. It would be good for a couple more hours, she thought as she allowed her eyes to flutter closed and sleep to reclaim her.


End file.
